Daihatsu showed off a quartet of cute concept cars at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show (D-Base, Hinata, Tempo, Nori Ori), but here’s one debutant that one can actually walk in to the showroom and buy today, if you live in Japan that is. The Daihatsu Cast kei-car was launched in September, but this is the first showing of the Sport variant.
Compared to the standard Cast Style and SUV-inspired, 30 mm taller Cast Activa, the Cast Sport is the racy sister. The front and rear bumpers get extensions and there’s a red pinstripe underlining the lower section. More red appears on the wing mirror caps and the C-pillars, while the roof gets a carbon-style job from the “D Wrapping” range.
The Sport also gets a unique honeycomb grille with an “S” emblem on it. The round eyes of the Cast and its unjoined circle LED signature (DRLs at the bottom) gives the minicar a MINI vibe, and the spiderweb tail lamp element is unique. The Cast Sport can be had with 16-inch alloys, an inch larger than the Style and Activa.
Inside, the theme is black with red accents, including red stitching on the Momo steering wheel, which has shift paddles for the CVT gearbox’s seven-speed manual mode. Both the branded wheel and paddles are Sport exclusive items. Daihatsu has also fitted sportier suspension with tuning inspired by the Copen kei-roadster.
The compact footprint of the Cast (3,395 mm long) and its 660 cc turbocharged three-cylinder engine with 64 PS and 92 Nm are bound by Japan’s kei-car limits. A 4WD variant is available for northern regions that get snow. Daihatsu claims fuel consumption of 24.8 km/l in the Japanese JC08 cycle.
With the ringgit’s “new normal” value of around RM3.50 to 100 yen, it won’t be cheap enough for Perodua to sell in large numbers here; but small batches of these quirky JDM machines should be able to find kei-car fans or simply buyers looking for something different from the Axia and Myvi, don’t you think? Also check out the Move Custom RS, Wake and Cocoa we covered at the 2015 GIIAS show in August.
When perodua going to adopt this model become the all new kelisa?
hahaha…ini mungkin generasi baru kancil/kelisa perodua.. turbocharged 660cc for city and town driving or short distance work place, this car is the best choice…
all concept..daihutsu should instead build it and sell right away for all thier concept
who mentioned this is a concept? it is already selling in japan.
More interesting if the parent company Toyota (UMW) bringing in Rav4 instead. The car looks great IMHO. I just don’t understand why they still relying on Corolla and Vios, when others are being very aggressive in the SUV segment. Forget Nautica – new facelift is even more hedious.